Posted 2004-July-14, 16:31
I saw a post in another forum that I thought quite interesting. The correspondent was bemoaning the rule that a two-trick penalty is imposed instead of a 1 trick penalty, in circumstances where the non-offending side take all tricks subsequent to the revoke, the offending side take the revoke trick, and the revoke occurs on the 4th card played to the trick which is already being won by revoker's partner.
The correspondent received no sympathy, but I found the argument quite appealing.
To recap, LHO leads the King of trumps, your partner plays the Ace of trumps, your RHO plays a small trump and at this point you discard despite holding a trump. LHO then makes all of the rest of the tricks.
There is not a whole lot of logic behind the revoke laws, but the general principle seems to be: You lose a trick automatically as a "penalty". Fair do's. Nothing to do with equity. Then there is possibly a second trick penalty, in order to severely penalise someone who appears to gain from the revoke. That is the underlying reason for the second trick penalty. Rather a crude yardstick, but the measure of having gained by the revoke, that avoids the need for Deep Finessing each hand on which there is a revoke, is to deem there to be an advantage gained if a subsequent trick is won by the revoking side with a card that could have been played legally on the revoke trick.
At least, in that event, there is a POSSIBILITY that the subsequent trick won resulted from the revoke. But in the scenario suggested that possibility can never arise. If advantage can never arise from the revoke it seems a little harsh to impose a two trick penalty.
So I had some sympathy with the correspondent. Most of the replies simply stated what the rules are (on which point there was never any dispute) without addressing the reason for those laws or their shortcomings.
Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.
Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. m
s
t
r-m
nd
ing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.
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